Costa Rica Travel: Creatures

While we traveled to Costa Rica last year, I wanted to share these creatures with you. It was a trip unlike any other mostly because of the creatures we encountered. It is riddled with wildlife! Truly a zoo without cages.  Seriously, all of these animals are actually wild (and mostly friendly).

We saw at least three types of monkeys, multiple huge lizards, sloths, birds, raccoons, some crazy large jungle rodent and – even huge crocodiles.

We were only there for 7 days and many of these experiences were close up!

On our drive from Arenal Volcano and La Fortuna, southeast along the coast, we found ourselves on a bridge looking down at crocodiles in Tarcoles.

Hotel Arenas del Mar was like Disneyland with a private beach and golf carts that whisked you from point to point. Everything, the beautiful beaches, incredible animals – sloths, monkeys lizards etc., was amazing.

I was waiting to snap this photo of this little monkey. He was busy examining a leaf.

The monkeys and sloths, we spotted in Manuel Antonio National Park, came with absolutely incredible views of the rain forest environment. We were lucky to have a dry hike while we were there.

And, yes, cows in Costa Rica. Not sure why this surprised me!

Then I spotted these creatures while surfing. Oh, those are my creatures!

My creatures loved the warm water, moderate but consistently surf-able waves. My creatures also loved the zip-lining – once we did it.

Zip lining (once I stopped screaming at the top of my lungs!) was incredibly scenic and a tour like no other through the cloud forest. Then my creatures enjoyed the bumpy grounds from the huge volcano.

This mist and fog kept us from seeing the Arenal Volcano very often during our stay but when it showed up, it was amazing how close we were to it.

Thanks for traveling along with me – and my creatures!

Have you ever traveled to Costa Rica? What creatures did you see on your trip?

Go Gingham related links:

We had to know our blood types for this trip – read about it here
Costa Rica is very eco-conscious and it shows!
Looking for more great places in Costa Rica? Check these out

Disclosure: Thanks to the Costa Rica Tourism Board for providing our family with this amazing trip to Costa Rica.